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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 



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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



Manuals of JFattf) anD £>utp. 

EDITED BY REV. J. S. CANTWELL, D.D. 



A SERIES of short books in exposition of prominent teachings 
of the Universalist Church, and the moral and religious 
obligations of believers. They are prepared by writers selected for 
their ability to present in brief compass an instructive and helpful 
Manual on the subject undertaken. The volumes will be affirmative 
and constructive in statement, avoiding controversy, while specifically 
unfolding doctrines. 

The Manuals of Faith and Duty are issued at 25 cents each. 
Uniform in size, style, and price. 

I. THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD. 

By Rev. J. Coleman Adams, D.D., Brooklyn, N. Y. 

II. JESUS THE CHRIST. 

By Rev. S. Crane, D.D., Norwalk, O. 

III. REVELATION. 

By Rev. I. M. Atwood, D.D., President of the Theological 
School, Canton, N. Y. 

IV. CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 

By Rev. Warren S. Woodbridge, Medford, Mass. 

V. SALVATION. 

By Rev. Orello Cone, D.D., President of Buchtel College, 
Akron, O. 

VI. THE BIRTH FROM ABOVE. 

By Rev. Charles Follen Lee, Charlestown, Mass. 

VII. (In Preparation.) 

VIII. THE CHURCH. 

By Rev. Henry W. Rugg, D.D., Providence, R. I. 

IX. HEAVEN. 

By Rev. George Sumner Weaver, D.D., Providence, R. I. 



PUBLISHED BY THE 

UNIVERSALIST PUBLISHING HOUSE, 

BOSTON, l^ASS. 

Western Branch : 69 Dearborn Street, Chicago. 



Jttanuafe of Jaiti) ana ©utg. 

No. IX. 



HEAVEN. 

BY 

GEORGE SUMNER WEAVER, D.D. 



In my Father's house are many mansions: 
if it were not so, I would have told you. I go 
to prepare a place for you And if I go and 
prepare a place for you, 1 will come again, and 
receive you unto myself; that where I am, 
there ye may be also. — John xiv. 2, 3. 

MJI S 1891 , 

BOSTON: tfJ^lT 

UNIVERSALIST PUBLISHING HOUSF 

1891. 






Copyright, 1891, 
By the Uniyersalist Publishing House. 



©mfcrnsfts Press: 
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. 



CONTENTS. 



Section Pag a 

Introduction 5 

I. The Bible Heaven . 7 

II. What is Heaven ? 8 

III. Where is Heaven? 16 

IV. * Variety in Heaven 26 

V. Important Questions Considered . . 28 

1. Children in Heaven 29 

2. How shall we know our Children ? . .35 

3. Age and Earthly Decay 38 

VI. The Spiritual Body and the Endless 

Life 43 

VII. Death Considered 47 

VIII. What of the Wicked? 51 

IX. The Intermediate State and Judgment 53 

X. The Dim-sightedness of Human Faith 58 

XL Matter and Spirit 66 

XII. New Employments in Heaven .... 72 

XIII. "The Kingdom of Heaven" 78 

XIV. The Phrase as used in the New Testa- 

ment 84 

XV. Hints of the Higher Kingdom ... 91 



Et lira arounti us life a eloutt, 

& mctrlU rur bo not sre ; 
get trje storet riostng of an ege 

£Rag bring its tlirrr to be. 

Ets gentle breeds fan our erjeek 

3mio our foorltilrj rarrs ; 
Eis gentle noirrs borjisner lour, 

3ntf mingle bottl) our praprrs. 

£bret rjearts arounti us trjrob ano brat, 
^rueet helping ijantis are stirrro, 

3no palpitates tfje beii bertoeen 
ZMitl) breathings almost rjearo. 

Harriet Beecher Stowe. 



HEAVEN. 



INTRODUCTION. 



*T^ VERY WHERE among intelligent men are 
^^ there visions and hopes of a world and life 
better than we are experiencing in the flesh. 
Universal man is pained with the sense of limi- 
tation and imperfection, while he has an active 
consciousness of capacity for a freer and nobler 
activity. It is common for men to feel them- 
selves prisoners, while they crave and cannot 
help craving a free life for all their powers. 
They long to be more and better than they are. 
They think and dream of ideal men and lives 
such as they would be glad to be and live, and 
feelthat they have capacities for. Their limita- 
tions are always suggesting freer and larger 
reaches of activity. Their ignorance intimates 
knowledge. Their failures make success a most 
desirable thing;. Their sinfulness and its mis- 



6 HEAVEN. 

eries make a holy life the richest of all coveted 
prizes. Everything on the human side of their 
experience so suggests an ideal excellency that 
they have come to live largely under the hope of 
such excellences to be realized by and by. Their 
present possessions constantly intimate richer 
ones to be attained. They see on before and up 
above a life and a world so desirable that they 
now live much under inspiration drawn from 
them. 

" Hope springs eternal in the human breast : 
Man never is, but always to be blest/' 

This hope is the seed of the idea of heaven. It 
is universal, and hence the anticipation of 
heaven is universal among men. It is in the 
nature of man ; hence men in the form of men 
would not be men without it. Men, or creatures 
so called, would not be men without intellects, 
nor would they be men without affections ; no 
more would they be men without the hope ^vhich 
gives the visions of heaven. Not revealed any 
more than natural is the heaven which men 
anticipate. Not of the Bible any more than of 
history is the heaven in which men have be- 
lieved. It is in men to have a vision of heaven 
before them. Call this vision by what name we 



HEAVEN. 7 

may, it is that notion of anticipated good which 
their nature produces. 

I. — The Bible Heaven. 

This is the heaven suggested and illustrated 
by the great teachers of the Bible. It was not 
in the beginning a clear and fully revealed out- 
line of the actual world and life of men in the 
spirit, so much as a recognition of such a world 
and life, and their wholesomeness and value to 
men in the flesh. The recognition grew through 
the ages of the growth of the Bible, till we have 
the consciousness and clearness of the vision of 
heaven given in the teachings and life of Him 
who is the " Light of the World." 

The idea of heaven given by the great Teacher 
is so much a matter of faith that all local and 
material notions concerning it must be left to the 
individual conception of it. " We see through a 
glass darkly " in relation to it. " We walk by 
faith and not by sight," when we search for " the 
things not seen which are eternal." We must 
not expect positive knowledge of the things we 
hold by faith. The most we can expect is a 
rational and satisfying belief concerning that 



8 HEAVEN. 

which lies " beyond the veil." It is better, far 
better, to have such a belief to live and rest in, 
than to be harassed with perplexing doubts, or 
darkened in mind by the eclipse of unbelief. A 
vision of excellence, a faith in a life to come 
in which our powers shall be at their best, is a 
quickening incentive in the present, of immense 
value. A fortune to be made, a good to live for, 
stirs the better ambitions to energetic activity. 

Understanding perfectly the limits of knowl- 
edge and the uncertainties of faith, we may ask 
the question : 

II. — What is Heaven ? 

Where shall we go for an answer ? Human 
science, philosophy, history, and learning give 
us only vague replies. Only the Bible will give 
comforting satisfaction ; and even the Bible is 
less direct than we could wish. It seems to take 
it for granted that men have ideas of their own 
of a better life before them than the one they 
are now living, and to address those ideas. 

The word " heaven " is used in the Bible in dif- 
ferent senses. It was at first used in a purely ma- 
terial sense. It meant the open arch above the 



HEAVEN. 9 

earth, the firmament, the canopy heaved up 
above us. The first meaning given in our diction- 
aries is, that which is heaved or thrown up ; the 
arch which overhangs the earth. At first it was 
a purely material word, which was afterward 
loaded with a spiritual meaning. Used in the 
plural, " the heavens," it means the great canopy 
above us, with all the worlds therein. 

In this material sense heaven is always an 
overhanging presence, superior to the earth, 
stretching every way from it in infinite distance. 
Taking advantage of this, the Bible writers used 
it to express a superior state of existence, — one 
raised up from this present one, higher, more 
powerful, — a world which bears a relation to 
this such as the firmament does to the earth. In 
their conception it is a state of being, a realm of 
life, or world inhabited by orders of beings su- 
perior to us who live in this world. One asks, 
" Whom have I in heaven but Thee ? " as though 
God fills that world with His presence and glory. 
The Son of God says, " I came down from 
Heaven," intimating that He dwelt in that world, 
and came down into this. It is said of Him 
after his death that " He ascended up into 
heaven," where he now lives as He did before 



10 HEAVEN. 

He came to this world ; intimating that He was, 
and is now, an inhabitant of that higher sphere 
of existence. Jesus said, early in His ministry, 
" Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the 
angels of God ascending and descending upon 
the Son of man," 1 recognizing Him as belonging 
to their world, doing its work and promoting its 
glory. When He came into this world, it is said 
that angels attended his coming, as though they 
came with him from their higher abode. In the 
Lord's Prayer, " Thy will be done in earth as it 
is in heaven," intimates that it is done more 
perfectly by the inhabitants of that world than 
by those of this. Christ says, " All power is 
given unto me in heaven and in earth ; " 2 this 
recognizes that heaven is a realm of life as distinct 
as the earth, and that he is the rightful moral 
ruler of both. In his talk with Nicodemus He 
says, " No man hath ascended up to heaven, but 
the Son of man which is in heaven," 3 in which 
he recognizes that superior world as the one to 
which he belongs, and in the spirit of which he 
lived while in the flesh. ♦ 

Paul speaks of Christ as to " reconcile all 
things unto Himself, whether they be things in 

1 John i. 51. 2 Matthew xxviii. 18. 3 Johniii. 13. 



HEAVEN. 11 

earth, or things in heaven;" 1 and " to gather 
together in one all things in Christ, both which 
are in heaven and which are on earth ; " and 
" that at the name of Jesus every knee should 
bow, of things in heaven and of things in earth," 2 
as though earth and heaven are two distinct 
realms, or worlds, both of which are to come 
completely under His rule and be together the 
realm of His triumph. Peter recognizes the ex- 
istence of this superior world in the use of the 
word " heavens," when he speaks of " the heav- 
ens " receiving Christ until the restitution of all ■ 
things. 3 So Paul uses the same word in refer- 
ence to the same world, when he speaks of it as 
our ultimate home : " We have a building of God, 
an house not made with hands, eternal in the 
heavens." Christ clearly states the same fact 
when He says, " In my Father's house are many 
mansions." So he speaks of it in what he says 
of little children, — " that in heaven their angels 
do always behold the face of my Father which is 
in heaven." 4 And the reverent address with 
which He has taught us to begin our prayers, 
" Our Father which art in heaven," clearly points 

1 Colossians i. 20. 2 Philippians ii. 10. 

3 Acts iii. 21. 4 Matthew xviii. 10. 



12 HEAVEN. 

to such a superior abode of intelligent beings. 
All Christ and the apostles say of the resurrection 
alludes directly to the existence of such a world, 
into which men are raised from the dead ; and 
the Revelator triumphantly recognizes it in his 
vision of the ultimate success of Christ's exalting 
work, when all in heaven and on earth should 
give " blessing and honor and power and glory to 
God and the Lamb." These and many more 
passages of a similar import make it clear that 
Christ and his early disciples, from whom the 
Xew Testament came, taught the existence of a 
world of spiritual life for men and angels, to 
which men go after they leave this life of flesh 
and sense, which is superior to this mortal estate 
in all that pertains to the intellectual and spirit- 
ual life of men. That estate they called heaven. 
They conceived it to be so spiritual as to be the 
home of God, their spiritual Father, who is a 
spirit. Christ called it his Father's " house of 
many mansions," which indicates its provisions 
for the many conditions of the Father's great 
family, — room for all, and rooms or depart- 
ments adapted to the wants of all. Seeing it as 
the house or home of God, makes it clear that 
thev held it to be under God's care and the influ- 






HEAVEN. 18 

ence of His Spirit. It was to them a world of 
light, congenial to the human spirit, adapted to 
its development and growth, and open to the best 
and highest things it is capable of attaining and 
enjoying. 

It is presented also in the New Testament as 
Christ's home, from which He came, to which He 
went, in which He now lives and carries on His 
enlightening and righteous and loving work. It 
is presented too as the home of the angel hosts 
who join with Christ in his work of winning men 
to their Father's love, and to the joy and glory 
of living in the principles and privileges of His 
home. A home of " mansions," nothing but 
mansions ! Surely this delightful, inspiring 
word could not have been used to give us any 
otlfer ideas than those of plenty, — wants supplied, 
tastes well ordered and elevated, aspirations and 
affections attuned thereto, minds conformed to 
their environments, lives harmonious with their 
associations. 

Christ's statement that little children in 
heaven " do always behold the face of my Fa- 
ther," taken in connection with his view of 
heaven as " many mansions," indicates that the 
mansions provide places for all, "from the least 



14 HEAVEN. 

unto the greatest ; " and His remark to the thief 
on the cross, " This day shalt thou be with me in 
paradise," indicates that there are mansions for 
all,' from the worst unto the best. Heaven, as 
given in these and other passages, neither lacks 
room for, nor adaptability to the wants of all 
God's family. Large and varied as human needs, 
must be heaven as it is sketched in the multiform 
language of-the New Testament. 

A class of New Testament phrases drawn 
from the word " heaven," such as " heavenly," 
" heavenly places," " heavenly things," " heavenly 
calling," " heavenly gift," " heavenly country," 
" heavenly Jerusalem," " heavenly host," u heav- 
enly vision," u heavenly kingdom," are used to 
express the character, spirit, quality of heaven 
applied to things in the earth. Christ says, " My 
kingdom is not of this world," by which He meant, 
it is of heaven, — a better, richer, diviner world. 

By " the kingdom of heaven," " the kingdom 
of God," and similar phrases, He taught of his 
Church, moved by the spirit, truth, and principles 
of heaven, about which He said so much. These 
phrases all give us hints, touches, ideas of heaven 
as the home of moral and spiritual excellences, 
beauty of soul, richness of love and life. 



HEAVEX 15 

The New Testament outline of heaven makes it 
a morally higher world than earth, — a sphere of 
immortal existence, — the final home of God and 
His intelligent family, into which men rise from 
the dead when they leave this realm of mortality. 
The principles which govern that world are di- 
vine ; and as fast and as far as men's minds be- 
come imbued with them, are they made heavenly. 
It is not going into that world that makes one 
heavenly, so much as getting the spirit and prin- 
ciples of it into him ; no more than going into a 
college makes one a scholar, or going into a 
church makes one a Christian. That world, like 
this, is one in which knowledge and love and 
holiness have their conditions and degrees, in 
which its inhabitants grow in truth and power and 
personal worth, in which all the principles of 
Christ's religion are in active and powerful oper- 
ation, in which Christ has the ruling power for 
the advancement of- its inhabitants to heavenly 
perfection. But Christ's sway there, as here, is 
in the voluntary obedience and love of his sub- 
jects. He leads, enlightens, and blesses by his 
truth and love accepted as the soul's bread and 
life. 

So, in answer to the question, What is heaven ? 



16 HEAVEN, 

it must be said that it is that final state of God's 
children, in which they live by the principles of 
His gospel and appreciate the joy and glory of 
their relationship to Him and each other and the 
universe in which they are so blest. 

III. — Where is Heaven? 

This seems to be the next question to be con- 
sidered. And as soon as it is asked, our minds 
think of heaven as above us. But w T e must re- 
member that the word has parted with its ma- 
terial meaning, and assumed a spiritual one. 
Instead of up in space, it now means up in 
quality j — in mental and moral excellence, in 
order of being, in opportunity and advantage. 
" Above " must now be understood as implying 
superiority. Hence the heavenly world is to be 
thought of, not as up in space, but in condition 
and opportunity, in dignity,- power, and worth. 
When Christ is said to come down from heaven, 
the meaning was that He humbled himself to 
take on an inferior condition of life ; and when He 
was said to ascend up to heaven, the idea was 
that He took on a superior order of being. If the 
eye-witnesses who saw his departure from earth, 



HEAVEN. 17 

saw it as a material ascension into the open 
heavens, it was only the vision of material eyes, 
permitted to strike them with awe, that they 
might be the more solemnly impressed with such 
a wonderful sight, which they were not yet able 
to comprehend spiritually. Heaven we are to 
think of, therefore, not as up in space, but as a 
superior order of mental and moral and affec- 
tionate life. 

" Our Father in heaven," where is He ? Our 
risen Saviour, where is He ? The angels in 
heaven who rejoice in the repentance of earthly 
sinners, where are they ? Moses and Elias, when 
they talked with Jesus in the presence of Peter 
and John, where were they ? Where were the 
angels which appeared at Christ's birth, baptism, 
and temptation ? And u the cloud of witnesses " 
who hung in trailing glory about the apostles ? 
And those who rolled away the stone from 
Joseph's new tomb, and that one who was with 
Peter in prison, and the one who was with John 
on Patmos ? And where was Jesus during the 
forty days succeeding his resurrection when in 
sight and out of sight so frequently, in front and 
behind the veil alternately ? Were not all these 
visits of the heavenly inhabitants made to assure 

2 



18 HEAVEN. 

us that heaven is not far away, but near us, close 
about us ? Christ taught us to pray, " Our 
Father who art in heaven," with the thought 
that he and his home are in close proximity to 
us. And Christ would have His followers be- 
lieve that He, though in his Father's home, is 
not far away from them, for He said to them, 
" Lo ! I am with you unto the end of the world." 
He said, " The kingdom of heaven is within 
you ; " and He dwells and rules in that kingdom. 
In His Father's rewards and punishments of 
men, in his own care of his church, in the 
Divine Providence over all human affairs, in the 
fact that " the very hairs of our heads are num- 
bered," He teaches us that heavenly influences 
are pressing upon us, that heavenly eyes are 
always beholding us, and heavenly hands are 
always helping us, while we dwell in the flesh ; 
therefore would He have us believe ourselves sur- 
rounded by the heavenly world, and as really 
belonging to it, though our eyes are not open to 
its realities. By faith would He have us now 
live in it, accept its principles, and enter its 
blessed spirit of trust, love, and peace. Accord- 
ing to His teaching, we ought to consider our 
minds, our real selves, as belonging to the unseen 



HEAVEN. 19 

world of spirit, as really as the angels, himself, 
or even his Father ; for already that world is 
carrying on its affairs in us and around us, 
and we are held in the care and love of its inhab- 
itants, and are made to grow into its life and 
consciously enter into its fulness by and by. 
Our inner life belongs to that world ; and He 
came among us and lived as one of us, to awaken 
us to its realities and opportunities. Take out 
of the New Testament this consciousness of the 
spirit world about us, and how little would there 
be left of it ! Is it hard to believe that Heaven 
is so near us to-day, that the spiritual realm 
presses its claims upon us as it did upon the 
first followers of Christ, and that we belong to it 
as really as did Moses and Elias when they ap- 
peared on the Mount of Transfiguration ? 

There are many things about us, besides 
Heaven, which we do not see, and in which we 
are forced to believe. We do not see the atmos- 
phere which wraps us about in a perpetual em- 
brace and presses us with a weight of fourteen 
pounds to every square inch of the surface of our 
bodies. We never see the electric fluid, except 
when disturbed, which permeates the atmosphere, 
— an ubiquitous essence and power, — seemingly 



20 HEAVEN. 

almost an omnipresent spirit. We never see the 
powerful forces of attraction which hold us and 
all material things in their invisible grasp, and 
keep spinning in their everlasting circuits the 
worlds that swing and shine in the spaces of 
immensity about us. We never see the essences 
of life which clothe the earth in vegetable and 
animal existence ; nor those chemical affinities 
and repulsions which are all the time performing 
stupendous miracles about us. We do not see 
anything but the merest fraction of the wonder- 
ful material facts and forces which girdle us 
about and make the world in which we live a 
wonder-world to the wisest and best of us. But 
seeing what we do, we have learned that there 
is no logical explanation of the material universe 
about us, without admitting the existence of the 
spiritual universe within it which is its soul and 
cause. Heaven may, therefore, be near us, may 
be round about us, and we not have any knowl- 
edge of it through our senses. Spiritual beings 
may throng the spaces about us, and we not 
know it. Bat there is a consciousness in many 
souls of the nearness of heavenly beings and the 
pressure of heavenly influences upon their spirits. 
Prophets and souls uplifted by great earnestness 



HEAVEN. 



21 



in the pursuit of spiritual enlightenment, have 
felt the touch of celestial intelligences and the 
uplift of those divine principles which make 
heaven superior to the earth. Christ, and those 
associated with Him, gave evidence of being 
associated with intelligences not of earth, and 
of drawing spiritual aid from the source of spir- 
itual life itself. There is much evidence, from 
the common experience of Christian souls, of the 
nearness of God and His readiness to aid and 
comfort them, and of Christ's making good all 
His promises to them. They feel that heaven, 
with its forces of truth and faith and love, is 
pressing upon them, giving a witness within of 
what and where it is. 

But some may ask, Why should spirits dwell 
among material things, and heaven be located in 
the midst of material worlds ? This is a ques- 
tion that suggests a world of thought. Spirits 
are intelligent, and must delight in a knowledge 
of the works of God, and in all pursuits that 
manifest and magnify His glory. To increase in 
intelligence, to study to know and rejoice in the 
laws of God in relation to matter as well as mind, 
and to increase in mental as well as moral power, 
must be among the great objects of heavenly 



22 HEAVEN. 

living. Some of the things about us, important to 
know, have been mentioned. These may be open 
to the study of spirits. These material wonders 
about us which we can only contemplate from 
the outside, as it were, they may study from the 
inside. Where we can only acquire the first let- 
ter in the alphabet of knowledge, they may ac- 
quire the whole literature relating thereto, and 
pursue their studies with delight corresponding 
to their greatness. All the subtle forces that 
control material things, such as crystallization, 
distillation, fermentation, growth, decay, life, 
death, — all the, to us, hidden processes of pro- 
duction, generation, and possibly creation, may 
be to them objects of almost infinite pleasure, in 
their study of them. When we go into the fields 
or woods, how much there is about us of which 
we know nothing ! Each little flower is a won- 
der, each plant a miracle, each tree a world of 
marvel. When we think how every little rootlet 
in the mould is gathering up the material it wants 
for grass, flower, fruit, gum, sap, wood, bark, 
and leaf, for oak, maple, elm, pine, and vine, for 
grape, apple, nut, and orange, — for all varieties of 
vegetation ; how each one rejects all it does not 
want, choosing with a perfect intelligence what 






HEAVEN. 23 

it wants and nothing else ; how every plant and 
tree is full of little tubes along which is carried 
up from the roots the liquid nourishment gath- 
ered from the soil ; how every limb, twig, and 
leaf is receiving its share and its kind ; how all 
the leaves are lungs for the trees and plants, 
breathing and separating the atmosphere and 
using its particles for nutriment ; how they dis- 
solve the sunshine and braid its colors into their 
texture : think that very likely all this, which is 
mystery and marvel to us, may be open to angel 
eyes, making of the dull plain and dark wood a 
field of glory to them ; think of the light about 
us, as composed of seven colors as we see them 
in the rainbow, and more than likely these colors 
may be always distinctly visible to the angels, 
that all created things are glowing in their 
sparkling radiance, more than realizing the Rev- 
elator's gorgeous vision of the New Jerusalem ; 
and think also of the plants and trees about us 
as studded with gems and glittering in this 
many-colored light, — for science has already in- 
formed us that the barks of trees and the stalks 
of grasses and grains and many of our common 
plants are built up of perfect crystals, laid one 
above another like circular monuments made of 



2i HEAVEN. 

precious stones, — we may begin to see bow 
there may be many reasons for the location of 
the home of spirits in the midst of material 
things. These suggestions are enough to make 
it most likely to the rational mind, that heaven, 
the final home of God's intelligent family, is 
among His material creations, the beauties and 
wonders of which they may enjoy forever. 

It has been a mistaken fashion of religious 
men to depreciate material things, to brand the 
earth as the home of sin and death, to hold 
man's alliance with materiality as a compact with 
evil. This mistake has helped them to feel that 
heaven must be far away from material things. 
They forget that God has shown us His wisdom, 
power, and goodness very largely in His material 
works ; that in our fleshly estate He has shown us 
His Fatherly spirit, and made us much acquainted 
with spiritual tilings. Can we rationally con- 
clude that in this short life only, He will use ma- 
terial things for our profit and joy ? Will He 
have done with the service of material things in 
our behalf when we lay off our robe of flesh ? 
Has He constructed this universe of worlds arid 
wonders only to serve us in our infancy of being ? 
Is it not more likely that He has higher uses to 






HEAVEN. 25 

put it to in behalf of His spirit children in their 
maturity ? 

Is it not true that men begin their heaven 
where they begin to live spiritually, and begin 
to realize the upper state as distinct from this, 
where they die ? Do they not open their eyes to 
upper realities in the same place where they 
close them to lower realities ? Is it not true 
that they are raised into the heavenly world in 
the same place they die out of the earthly world ; 
that the change is not a change of place so 
much as of condition, — a dropping an old 
mode of life and putting on a new, a leaving 
the outside of things and going into the inside ? 

In this world we are tethered to a narrow lo- 
cality ; in that we shall have the wide freedom of 
God's works, — may visit place after place, world 
after world, people after people, and order af- 
ter order of created intelligences. In the first 
stages of life in heaven men must awaken to 
what they were most awake to here, to what in 
heaven their earth life had prepared them for. 
The geologist will be prepared to see the things 
of his science in the new light thrown upon them 
by the clearer vision and the better knowledge of 
the men of that world ; the botanist will be a de- 



26 HEAVEN. 

lighted student of all that is involved in the life 
principles of creation in their lowest forms, for 
all will be seen under the truthful revelations 
of that higher world ; the astronomer will see 
wonders in the heavens unknown to him before : 
and each man will see the things he knows most 
of in the new lights of heavenly truths and uses. 
Human experience will not be lost, but applied 
as best it may be, to life in its advanced condi- 
tions. The better and the wiser men have lived 
below, the richer will be the results in heaven. 
Earth is the vestibule of heaven. Xot only in 
the moral and spiritual elements of the human 
soul, but in the intellectual and practical, is the 
earth life a preparation for the heavenly. The 
" new heavens and the new earth" which Peter 
anticipated are the new views and uses of both 
this world and the next, in which the relation of 
the two to each other shall be better understood, 
and human life accord better with the Divine 
requirements. 

IY. — Variety in Heaven. 

Many religious teachers in the past have con- 
ceived of heaven as a place of uniformity, and 






HEAVEN. 27 

have expected to find a great white throne in the 
centre, around which are ranged multitudes on 
multitudes of its people, in rows of equal and 
exultant saints, with harps in their hands and 
crowns on their heads, praising God because He 
has permitted them to stand there, instead of 
casting them down to hell. Such a heaven must 
be so tiresome in its monotony and so ill adapted 
to human wants, that it cannot be anticipated 
with pleasure. In this world men are varied in 
the make up of their souls and the experience of 
their lives, so that no two are alike. Each one 
has a personality and character of his own. Each 
one must go into the next life in his own person- 
ality. The variety of men in that world must be 
as great as in this. In changing worlds many 
things will, doubtless, be left behind, but not any 
one's personality. That is perpetual. Men will 
go to that world, too, in the variety of character 
in which they leave this. Death is said to be a 
leveller, but it does not level character or person- 
ality. Men will go into that world as they leave 
this, but will still be subject to change, to en- 
lightenment, persuasion, reform, growth ; for 
these belong to their spiritual nature. They are 
still God's children; they can think, feel, love, 



£8 HEAVEN. 

and learn ; and most likely with more force and 
excellency than here. With many hindrances 
left behind, and many helps made more real and 
forceful ; with the loving Father a quickening 
presence ; the persuasive Christ an active helper, 
— the light of souls ; the great and good of all 
ages organized into His heavenly church, — the 
combined sainthood of the world preaching and 
practising the gospel and making it the law of 
the heavenly society ; family loves renewed ; ac- 
cording friendships kindled anew ; duties made 
plain ; privileges appreciated ; opportunities 
opened everywhere ; the realities of the spiritual 
life and immortality settled forever, — what shall 
hinder that heaven shall become the soul's glad 
and improving life to all God's children, and they 
shall reverently and affectionately make the First 
and Second Commandments the law of their being 
and the glory of the spiritual universe ? 

V. — Important Questions Considered. 

In the first section of this volume it is main- 
tained that the Bible constantly speaks of 
heaven as not far away, but near, pressing its 
helpful influences upon us, and especially aiding 



HEAVEN. 29 

those who believe in it to experience something 
of its exaltation of spirit while they yet live in 
the flesh. It may now be well to consider some 
questions about it, which come more or less di- 
rectly and anxiously to us all ; and to consider 
them in the light of practical common-sense, so 
far as we may. In doing this we may dismiss 
old-time notions of heaven as much as possible, 
and try to be guided by the Bible, interpreted by 
our common human nature. 

1. Children and Heaven. — " Will children 
who die in infancy grow in heaven ? " This is 
a mother question, a love question, asked by 
many anxious parents, and asked in these exact 
words, of the author, by a mother who had given 
four infant children to heaven. No question of 
religion or life is more momentous to her than 
this, touching the condition of her little ones in 
heaven. She expects to meet them there ; but 
will they be grown up to know and enjoy her 
as their mother and nearest friend ? is her 
query, and the query of every mother under 
like circumstances. 

It has been said that half the human race die 
in childhood. However this may be, we know 
that many die before maturity. If they do not 



30 HEAVEN. 

grow and mature in heaven, what a world of in- 
fants that must be ! The very thought of it is so 
objectionable that we cannot entertain it with 
complacency. It is in the nature of the young 
mind to mature. It does not change its nature 
in laying off the robe of flesh. Growth is not in 
the flesh so much as in the spirit. The law of 
growth has its roots in the spirit. The real child 
is of spirit and not of flesh. The human being 
is not flesh, but spirit. The solid, positive, pow- 
erful part of a man is that part which lives and 
acts after his dust has gone back to its kindred 
dust. What is substantial and enduring in a 
man is that in him which thinks, loves, adores. 
That is the part which is kindred with the heav- 
enly world, and goes there when death cuts the 
flesh cord. Growth in that world is but the nat- 
ural development of the powers of the mind. 
Heaven is a mind-world, a soul-world, a spirit- 
world, in which the living person grows, ma- 
tures, and exercises its powers in the fullest 
freedom and naturalness. It is the world in 
which thought, affection, adoration produce the 
virtues and excellences of mind as its natural 
fruit. 

Nothing else, therefore, can be expected of in- 



HEAVEN. 31 

fant children but that they will grow in heaven 
in mental stature and power, till they shall 
reach maturity; and then grow in knowledge, 
wisdom, and worth, as men and women do. It 
would seem more than probable, almost certain, 
that the heavenly inhabitants would institute 
means to nourish the young mind in its growth, 
— such means as are suggested by our homes, 
kindergartens, and schools ; only better. Mind 
must be even more trainable there than here, be- 
cause it is away from the earthly hindrances and 
in its natural and kindred environment. Fa- 
thers and mothers and teachers are there in vast 
numbers, and the parental element in all its in- 
habitants, to do what they can to promote a 
sound and harmonious growth of the young 
souls which are to be their companions forever. 
What a privilege it will be for then* to join in 
the educational work of heaven, and be thus as- 
sociated with the rising generations of the an- 
gelic hosts ! Not a little of the joy of heaven 
will come to parent souls in this employment of 
their time and powers in the service of children 
and youth. 

We are justified only in thinking of that world 
as real and natural, and adapted to the nature of 



32 HEAVEN. 

its inhabitants. It is such a world as they can 
be benefited by and enjoy. It is made for them, 
and they for it ; and made by the same Infinite 
Father who so wisely adapted the things of this 
world to His earthly children. He has made 
that world for the permanent home of His chil- 
dren ; and if a part of them go there in infancy, 
they will grow to maturity all the better because 
of the perfect adaptedness of that world to their 
nature, and the wise and loving help of its 
society. 

Now, is this all supposition, conjecture, or has 
the Great Teacher given us good grounds for 
holding such views of children in heaven ? 

Jesus took little children in His arms and 
blessed them, and said, "Suffer little children to 
come unto me, and forbid them not : for of such is 
the kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you, Who- 
soever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a 
little child, he shall not enter therein." x " Verily 
I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and 
become as little children, ye shall not enter into 
the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore 
shall humble himself as this little child, the 
same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven." 2 

1 Mark x. 14, 15. a Matthew xviii. 3, 4. 



HEAVEN. 33 

" Take hoed that ye despise not one of these little 
ones: for 1 say unto you$ That in heaven their 
angels do always behold the faee of my Father 
which is in heaven. 1 ' J 

Nothing is plainer in the New Testament than 
that Christ loved little children, and also hold 
them in great esteem for their moral condition 
and intellectual possibilities. He set them be- 
fore His disciples as patterns of humility. Mr 
held humility as a moral quality not second 
to any other. It is a distinguishing quality 
of the kingdom of heaven, which He would 
have His disciples possess. In this He has fore- 
shadowed the character of heaven, and the har- 
mony of little children who have gone there, with 
this quality of their heavenly home. They arc 
at one with it. 

" Except ye be converted and become as little 
children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of 
heaven." This recognizes children as not need- 
ing conversion, but already in harmony with the 
life of heaven. Conversion is an intellectual as 
well as a moral matter. Men are converted to 
the true and good, — to right intellectual as well 
as moral conditions, to the right relations oi 

1 Matthew xviii. 10. 
3 



34 HEAVEN. 

mind to moral truth. He recognizes children in 
heaven as in these conditions. They are intellec- 
tually and morally right for the place. Every- 
body knows that there is no characteristic of the 
child mind more marked than its teachableness. 
To learn is its great passion. Its humility fits it 
to make the greatest use and profit of its teacha- 
bleness and its opportunities. This puts the 
children in heaven in the best possible situation 
to acquire both the intellectual and moral riches 
of heaven. They are to go forward to the great- 
est and best. In this immediate connection 
Christ teaches that there are degrees of attain- 
ment in the kingdom of heaven, — " the least 
and the greatest." If in the kingdom, then in 
heaven itself. Now He tells us that the little 
children in heaven have angels who " do always 
behold the face of my Father which is in heaven. 5 ' 
What are these angels for, if not to teach and 
wisely develop the minds of the children ? Every 
child in heaven has its angel teacher, guide, and 
friend. What does this angelic provision indi- 
cate, if not instruction, help, development in the 
heavenly life ? And how rich the provision 
when there is one teacher to every pupil ! No 
parsimony in the heavenly school system, and 






HEAVEN. 35 

no lack of honor for teachers and their office. 
" Their angels do always behold the face of My 
Father " must indicate their nearness to the Fa- 
ther, the richness of their spiritual life, and the 
blessedness of their help to the children. 

Therefore it seems clear, both from its reason- 
ableness and from the teachings of Christ, that 
children in heaven are maturing in the light and 
love of the heavenly home, and their parents left 
on the earth may anticipate meeting them by 
and by grown to be men and women in the 
celestial society. Let parental thankfulness 
abound. 

2. How shall we know our Children? — " But 
how shall we know them ? " some parents anx- 
iously ask. We must not forget that that is an 
intelligent and orderly world. Children are not 
reared in any hap-hazard way, but are doubtless 
instructed as to their parentage and family rela- 
tions. Records of relationship may be kept, to 
aid the already quick memories of the people of 
that world. Then older family relatives, grand- 
parents and great-grandparents and other rela- 
tives, are there, to keep active the family inter- 
ests, to rejoice in the coming of their own, and to 
aid them in renewing their family intimacies. It 



36 HEAVEN. 

can hardly be otherwise than that family life 
shall be at its best in heaven. It is held sacred 
in earth ; it is still more so in heaven. The an- 
gels of children, who have them in charge, are 
most likely older family relatives, who instruct 
them in relation to their parents and relatives 
left on the earth, so as to kindle and keep alive 
in them the family affections. Parents on the 
earth who fear their little ones in heaven will 
forget them or never know and love them, may 
dismiss those fears, for they do not forget their 
own in heaven. It is hardly believing too much, 
to believe that our dear ones in heaven keep 
watch of us on earth, at least enough to know 
our general movements and conditions. Our 
love for them does not grow cold ; why should we 
fear that theirs for us may ? Heaven is a loving 
place. Love is its atmosphere. Love grows 
rather than wanes there. It is more forgiving 
as well as more constant. Family love is hon- 
ored and cultivated there as much more than 
here, as heaven is better than earth. We are 
therefore to dismiss our fears of being forgotten 
by our dear ones gone, and have all faith in love 
in heaven, and have no doubt of knowing them 
when we go to them and of being known by them. 



HEAVEN. 37 

Christ said to His disciples, " I go to prepare a 
place for you." This is just the mission of de- 
parting friends ; they go to prepare places for 
their loved ones who are to follow them. They go 
to places their heavenly friends have made ready 
for them ; and then they prepare places for the 
friends they have left behind. Love has its per- 
fect work to do, and in no place will it do it more 
perfectly than in the heavenly home. There is 
nothing in all Christ's teaching more touching 
than that He would not forget His friends after 
He had got home, but would prepare places for 
them, that where He is they might be also. 
Just the office of love. And in this He tells us 
that He does not cease His work for men when 
He gets to heaven. He works there for men in 
this world. He continues to be the helping 
Friend of humanity, — the Father's love serving 
and saving men in heaven. He is not an idle 
Christ in heaven. His work is not done because 
He has left this world. And what He does for 
his disciples He will do for all for whom He died, 
— prepare places for them in heaven. And He 
employs others in this blessed work, and none 
more efficiently than the friends of those left 
behind. 



38 HEAVEN. 

Dear reader, have you a heart friend in 
heaven ? Do not doubt that the blessed Christ 
is employing that friend to prepare a place for 
you. It is one of the employments of departed 
friends to aid in making ready for the coming of 
their dear ones. In this way heaven and earth 
are kept near together and in sympathetic inter- 
est. The angels in heaven watch over sinners in 
the earth, and rejoice in their repentance ; Moses 
and Elias come back to prove they have not for- 
gotten us, and the Saviour assures us that He 
goes to make places for us to be with him. 
Surely there is no forgetting in heaven, and no 
danger that friends who meet there will not 
know each other. 

3. Age and Earthly Decay have no Place in 
Heaven. — " Will early friends who died in youth 
be met as gray -headed and wrinkled old people ? " 
The answer is an emphatic No. In that world 
age has no place. In mind the younger ones 
mature, and then go on in mental and spiritual 
improvement, growing wiser and richer-souled 
forever. Gray-headedness, age, wrinkles, bodily 
infirmity, belong to this world of flesh, and not 
to that of spirit. We are not to think of mind 
in that world as taking on infirmities with the 



HEAVEN. 39 

increase of years. Infirmities look toward 
death; but in that world there is no death. 
Life, perpetual life, prevails there, which does 
not grow infirm with the increase of years. 
Here, where age weakens and deforms the body, 
we have a dread of years that rob us of our 
youthful beauty and activity, both of body and 
mind ; but there the wisdom and worth acquired 
by the right use of years increase the beauty and 
power of the spirit. There age produces the 
fruits of the spirit which strengthen and enrich 
the soul. The older, the more beautiful, other 
things being equal, is the law of that world. 
Gray hairs, wrinkles, decrepitude, disease, and 
whatever is bodily do not go to that world, to 
deform and depress the soul. That is a spirit 
world, and not a body world. The spirit is God's 
child, and not the body. His children do not 
take on spiritual infirmities, like those of the 
body, with the increase of years. We may find 
it difficult to apprehend a substantial spiritual 
being, with power, durability, and growing capa- 
city, without a material form ; but such a being 
seems to be our spiritual personality. We have 
but a faint perception of mind, which no doubt is 
spiritual ; yet we know that all human power is 



40 HEAVEN. 

of the mind, and all human excellence also. 
Therefore we are not to think of bodily frailties, 
like the infirmities of age, as touching at all the 
people of heaven. They do not live in perpetual 
youth, but in perpetual maturity. 

" In this world old people lose mental power, 
memory, interest in life ;• and when very old, men- 
tal imbecility creeps on. Is this the condition in 
which they enter the immortal state ? " Again 
the true answer is, Most certainly not. While 
the law is that men enter the next world in the 
condition in which they leave this, very old peo- 
ple are an exception, because their minds are 
beclouded by the infirmities of the flesh. They 
are not themselves. Their failing bodies have 
weighted them down. They neither think nor 
feel nor act up to their full power. They have 
been more and better than they now are ; they 
are crippled with bodily age. They can truly say 
with Paul, " It is gain for me to die." In dying 
they will gain their freedom, their former power 
and activity, and their ability to go on in the pur- 
suit of knowledge, the performance of duty, and 
the enjoyment of life. Extreme old age is cer- 
tainly a misfortune. Ripe age is a blessing. 
With fleshly instincts and passions tamed, 



HEAVEN. 41 

worldly ambitions chastened, the whole mind 
enriched by a long life's experiences, the old who 
have lived well, are at their best. They have 
more of the kingdom than ever before, and live 
nearer to heaven. A healthy, well-lived life does 
not lose powder till it is w^ell along in a ripe old 
age. The last of a long life ought to be the best, 
and may be. In many cases it is. In such 
cases the door into heaven is ajar, and some- 
times half opened, before they reach it. They 
live much in the spirit of the heavenly life before 
they enter it. This is the true way to live and 
pass on. A rightly lived life should reach 
ninety years at its best. The Apostle John, at 
more than ninety, was living on the border of 
the heavenly land, and is an example for men 
who would make the most of the earth life and 
enter heaven at their best. 

Some inquire about the condition of the 
insane when they become conscious inhabitants 
of the world beyond. There are many in this 
sad plight, who close their eyes in death in a 
blight of mind. But what is the cause of their 
insanity ? Probably in all cases it is a physical 
ailment. In many cases it is known to be ; and 
in many cases where mental trouble leads to it, 



42 



HEAVEN. 



it is known that the trouble first deranges the 
bodily functions. It is altogether probable that 
all insanity is occasioned by bodily derange- 
ment. In all such cases death is their deliverer ; 
and they will be, when they enter the spiritual 
world, what they were before the eclipse of mind 
came upon them. 

A similar view is to be taken of the mul- 
titudes of persons who die in feebleness of 
mind after long sicknesses. It is the material 
organism through which mind acts in the earth, 
that is weakened, rather than the mind itself. 
There are many cases in which it is " gain " for 
men to die, — in which death is a friend. It 
is common to fear death ; but this is a false fear. 
It is God's door into the better world. While it is 
not a moral savior, it certainly saves many men 
from great troubles which there is no other way 
out of. And it is a common blessing to mankind 
in being the open way to better opportunities 
and richer fields of life. Thankful should we 
all be that the good Father has provided a way 
for our deliverance from our imprisonment in 
flesh and from our subjection to materiality. In 
few things has He shown His love more 
conspicuously. 



HEAVEN. 43 



VI. The Spiritual Body and the Endless 
Life. 

It has been the prevailing belief of Christen- 
dom for the last fifteen hundred years that the 
bodies of men would be raised in the resurrec- 
tion and reclothe their spirits, so as to make 
them dual in the other world. But for this there 
is no Scripture warrant. The resurrection taught 
by Christ is of the spirit and not of the body. He 
says that men in the resurrection state " neither 
marry nor are given in marriage," " they die 
no more," " are equal unto the angels," and 
" are the children of God," — all of which seems 
to relate to their spiritual personalities. Paul says, 
" Thou sowest not that body that shall be . . . 
but God giveth it a body as it hath pleased Him." 
" It is sown a natural body ; it is raised a spirit- 
ual body." In this he seems clearly to teach 
that our whole personality in that state is to be 
spiritual, and that we are not to expect the dual 
form of being we have here. If we call our form 
there a body, it is of spirit, one in substance with 
the soul itself. Of the substance of spirit we 
know nothing ; yet of its reality, of its power, 



44 HEAVEN. 

durability, superiority to materiality, we can have 
no doubt. We can hardly think of God as hav- 
ing a bodily organism. Our relationship to Him 
as children is in spirit. And so it seems neces- 
sary for us to think of ourselves in the spiritual 
state in the same form of being that He is. On 
this and all kindred matters we must not be 
dogmatic, but leave each one to think for him- 
self. But while we may not yet see eye to eye 
the great things of the spirit, but must wait till 
we become a part of them, we must no more 
doubt their reality and unspeakable importance 
than we do our own being. We are made for 
them, and are to go forward to them. It is on 
this ground only that we can get any satisfactory 
explanation of our existence. We ought to have 
such a faith in mind — or spirit, if we call it by 
that name — as to believe in its existence without 
the aid of matter, which is less than it and infe- 
rior to it, and to anticipate for ourselves and 
all human beings a life, after the death of the 
body, which shall be freer, more perfect in the 
possession and activity of all its functions, intel- 
lectual, moral, affectionate, and that this life 
shall continue forever. If we thus accept the 
Bible faith and believe in ourselves, we are not to 



HEAVEN. 45 

think of material forms as having any place in 
that world. Christ said, " Ye believe in God : 
believe also in me." It may with equal force be 
said, "Ye believe in God and Christ: believe also 
in yourselves." God and Christ are spiritual 
beings ; so are men. God and Christ have their 
life in the things of the spirit ; so do men who 
have gone into the spiritual realm. It is not in 
our bodies that we are to believe, but in our 
souls. 

But some ask, " Is it not difficult for us to 
conceive of an endless life ? We are accustomed 
to see an end of everything we know anything 
about; is it not expecting too much to antici- 
pate that we shall see how there shall be endless 
life ? " 

Yes, it is difficult to see how such a thing 
should be ; yet we are obliged to believe much 
that we know little of. The how of many things 
is beyond us. The how of life itself is beyond 
us, and yet we know we live. We do not know 
we shall cease to live. The presumption is in 
favor of continued life. To live after death is 
beyond our present experience ; but we have al- 
ready had many new experiences, and life itself 
is but a succession of new experiences. Because 



46 HEAVEN. 

life without a material b : I be new is not 

to be set lown as conclusive against it, or even 

objectionable to it. because we live now in a 
wonder world which gives us new things aim;-*: 
daily, There is no doubt but faith in our own 
immortality has its difficulties. So has faith in 
God. Yet it is far easier to I : a God than 

to deny him. Reason itself has difficulties. It 
is often without certainty, and has to take the 
side of probabilities. ■• We see through a gh 
darkly now." and so have to walk much by faith. 
We are young, even the oldest of us. and there- 
fore are learners. We cannot say a thing will 
not be because we have not known it to be, A 
few years ago we knew nothing of the elec^ 
light, nor the telephone, nor the telegraph : and 
a few years farther back our fathers knew noth- 
ing of the power and utility of steam. Our 
knowledge is a very late thing, and a very little 
thing as yet. There is a universe of facts and 
forces about us. of which we have yet to learn. 
It is very presumptuous for us to be unbeliev- 
ing about so grave a matter as our continued 
existence. 

Then as to the end of things, we are quite 
likely to misjudge. What seems to us an end is 



HEAVEN. 47 

in most cases a change. The years come and 
go, — seem to have an end ; yet they are only per- 
petual rounds, endless changes. It has come 
to be a doctrine of the scientists that matter is 
endless, always having been passing through dif- 
ferent changes. And if matter is endless, with 
how much more reason shall we say that of 
mind ? But we have had some experience in 
changes which are not ends. We have seen an 
end of infancy, but not of ourselves who were 
infants. Many of us have seen an end of youth, 
but we lived right along. Some of us have 
seen an end of mature physical power, but 
are certain that these changes have not weak- 
ened our personality ; and we feel an assurance 
of living on through the still greater change 
which we call death. 



VII. Death Considered. 

And what is death? We do not know. It 
seems to men to be an end. The Bible view, 
that it is only an end of the physical man, is 
more rational. The poet Longfellow has put 
it well, — 

" There is no death; what seems so is transition." 



48 HEAVEN. 

That is, a transition from one form of life to 
another. What is the body ? We know pretty 
well that it is only an organization of material 
substances, animated with a life principle of 
which we know nothing. Our physiologists tell 
us the various physical ingredients of which the 
body is composed. The greater part of it is water. 
Now, while we know this so well, we know equally 
well that this physical body is not the man. 
This body does not think, love, hope, or believe. 
The hand does not think, nor the heart, nor the 
brain. We know almost for a certainty that the 
brain is the organ through which the mind 
thinks, as the eye is the organ through which 
the mind sees, the ear the organ through which 
it hears, and the nerves the organ through which 
it feels. But the brain, eye, ear, and nerves are 
not any part of the mind. They are all physical 
and perishable. They come to an end. But 
this is no reason for believing that mind comes 
to an end. Because the fire burns up the house 
I live in is no reason for believing that it burns 
me up. I may have moved into another house. 
The physical body is simply the house man lives 
in ; it is no part of man himself. Man is mind ; 
or, to put it as the Bible does, man is spirit. 



HEAVEN. 49 

But the Bible idea is that spirit thinks, loves, 
wills, — just the powers we ascribe to mind. 
The Bible says God is a spirit. So man is what 
God is in the substance of his being ; that is, he 
is a spirit. And as God has no end, the legiti- 
mate inference is that man has no end. Of 
course, this is difficult for us to comprehend ; but 
it is more difficult for us to conceive of mind as 
having an end. 

This Bible view, which Longfellow has so well 
stated, that there is no death for man, but what 
seems so is transition, — or translation into an- 
other state of life which we are taught to call 
heaven, — is a delight to that hope which, another 
poet says, — 

" Springs eternal in the human breast." 

It makes death a friend of man, who introduces 
him to himself, his fellow-man, his Heavenly 
Father, and the better opportunities of the heav- 
enly world. It is good to think of it as a door 
out of one department of being into another, 
through which all men are to pass, and that this 
new department is an advance upon the old one, 
— better in everything, so that we are all gainers 
in passing through the door. Paul said, u It is 
gain for me to die." In this he doubtless stated 

4 



50 HEAVEN. 

the great principle that death is the open door 
out of earth into the spirit world, which is better 
for all men than this world. If this is true, all 
the awful diatribes that have been written of 
death are false and wrong. It is God's good 
institution for the deliverance of men from a 
low to a higher estate, and we are to praise 
Him for it. 

" But about those who deny God and immor- 
tality, — has that world good for them ? " The 
direct answer is, Not so much as it would have 
if they believed in it now, and made this world a 
life of preparation for it. Man's life, in all its 
stages, is a whole ; and each stage is affected by 
the one that preceded it. Each ought to be a 
preparation for the one to follow. Unbelief will 
not affect the fact of another world, nor the fact 
that unbelievers are to pass through the door of 
death into that world as do all other men, nor 
the fact that they are to live forever in that 
world. The unbelief of men does not affect 
God, save to awaken His pity, nor believing men, 
save to inspire their desire to convert them, and 
sorrow for their unbelief in the things most im- 
portant to them. It simply affects themselves, 
keeping them in the shadow of death and living 



HEAVEN. 51 

without hope or faith, thereby bringing the 
blight of unbelief upon all their powers of mind 
and heart. Unbelief in heavenly things is a 
kind of slow paralysis in the soul, dulling its 
great hopes and limiting all its aspirations to the 
times and things of earth. But once through 
the door they will be corrected of their great 
mistake. Their unbelief will be turned to knowl- 
edge. They will enter into the realities of the 
spirit world, and learn the great facts and oppor- 
tunities of that higher form of life. Experience 
will teach them what they refused to learn any 
other way. God in His providence will prove 
better to them than they were to themselves 
while in their unbelief. 

VIII. — What of the Wicked? 

" What of the wicked who up to death had 
loved evil?" ask a multitude of anxious souls. 
And well they may ; for, " What of the wicked ? " 
is a great question in all worlds. That there is no 
good in wickedness, but evil and only evil, is one 
of the great facts of experience forced upon us. 
" There is no peace to the wicked," is a state- 
ment of an ancient Scripture which all the wicked 



52 HEAVEN. 

have found out to be true. Now, " What of them 
in the over-the-river world?" is the question. 
They go there in a bad state of mind, — go there 
in opposition to God and His holy laws and ways 
of life ; what of them ? They go there as they 
are, with the paralysis of wickedness upon them, 
with the evil of wickedness in them. The thing 
about wickedness which has enticed them has 
been its secretness, its supposed smartness, its 
anticipated profitableness. But over there these 
guises put upon it by our fleshly and animal re- 
lations are left behind. Men go there to be seen 
and known as they are. The spirit there has 
no hiding-place in flesh. It may be a burning 
ordeal for a while for bad men to know that their 
badness is visible to all, and that they are esti- 
mated at their true value by all ; but it will be a 
profitable discipline which will teach them the 
unprofitableness of wickedness and the need of 
better things to live for. Among their first les- 
sons will be the terrible mistakenness of their 
earth-life in supposing that there is good in evil. 
But this lesson will be pressed with vigor, for 
things there go for their reality and not for their 
pretension. The falsities of earth have a poor 
show there ; the truth and the right press with 



HEAVEN. 53 

The will is free there as here ; but the 
prevalence of truth, reality, and rightness makes 
an atmosphere which punishes wickedness out of 
mind and out of life. 



IX. — The Intermediate State and Judgment. 

The Roman Catholic Church insists upon an 
intermediate state between death and heaven 
and hell, — a purgatory, in which wickedness 
shall be purged out of men so far as possible, 
and which shall end in sending men either to 
heaven or hell as their final destiny. But this, 
in its coarseness and failure, so far as the lost 
are concerned, is its chief objection. The first 
experience in the after-death world — the initia- 
tory experience — must be considered intermedi- 
ate and preparatory to the later attainments. 
With all, except the most thoroughly Christian, 
the early period of the heavenly life must be disci- 
plinary, instructive, — a school preparatory to the 
life to be attained later on. Peter called the 
most disobedient of the ancient times " spirits 
in prison," to whom Christ preached his gospel 
after He went to that world. Of course He 
preached to them for their improvement, as 



54 HEAVEN. 

Peter Bays, "that they might be judged accord- 
ing to men in the flesh, and live according to 
God in the spirit." 1 In other words. Christ's 
preaching there had the same object that it did 
here. — the instruction and reformation of men. 
The earlier perk els of the after-death life must 
be largely missionary periods, as the great major- 
ity oi those who go there are pagans, sinners, 
and infants. Instruction is the first work over 
there. The gospel is the book oi life for that 
rid. Christians are missionaries carrying the 
light and law and love 1 to the moltitu 

who have not known Him. And many Christians 
have so much to learn of the fundamental prin- 
ciples of the gospel, after they — : >ver the 
that they will be learners for i hey 

'can go as lights to the benighted. Many Chi 

to tarry awhile at Jerusalem for 

training in the gospel life. Yes, the -.: 

on the may well be called " interme- 

:/' as it is preparatory to the light and joy 

ren. Christ as the Light has an immense 

: do in that world to illuminate the souls 

of those who go there in darkness : and I 

Che use : : : all its power along 

1 1 Peter iii. I 



HEAVEN. 55 

the border-land of the heavenly world. Yet, to 
go there is " gain," so much of earth is left 
behind, so much of heavenly opportunity is 
gained. 

Judgment in the Divine government, beyond 
all question, is good. In purpose, administra- 
tion, and result, it is good. The goodness of 
God is as manifest in judgment and punishment 
as in reward. God loves in his stripes as truly 
as in any other form of blessing. All God's pun- 
ishments are blessings which the punished them- 
selves will see and gratefully acknowledge by 
and by. Judgment is God's pronunciation of 
men's moral condition, whether worthy of re- 
ward or punishment. Punishment is correction 
by means of chastisement. In the twelfth chap- 
ter of Hebrews we have a fine statement of 
God's punitive dealings with His children as fol- 
lows : " We have had fathers of our flesh 
which corrected us, and we gave them reverence : 
shall we not much rather be in subjection to the 
Father of spirits and live ? For they verily for a 
few days chastened us after their own pleasure ; 
but He for our profit, that we might be partakers 
of His holiness. Now, no chastening for the 
present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous ; 



56 HEAVEN. 

nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable 
fruit of righteousness unto them which are exer- 
cised thereby." This is a delightful and philo- 
sophical statement of God's corrective process, 
which is preceded by the statement that " whom 
the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth 
every son whom He receiveth." He is the 
Father in His punishments as in His other 
blessings, and would fail in His goodness if He 
withheld the correcting chastisement. 

But the u separation " of the family for the 
perpetual banishment of a part to a black prison- 
house of eternal despair, is another thing for 
which there is no warrant for believing, in 
Scripture, reason, or justice. The idea of such a 
separation lias been maintained from the par- 
able of the Sheep and the Goats, in the twenty- 
fifth chapter of Matthew. But a careful reading 
of the whole discourse in which the parable 
occurs, and what went before it to call it out, 
makes it clear that the discourse related to 
things to transpire within the generation in 
which it was spoken, at the setting up of 
Christ's kingdom on earth, rather than at its 
closing in heaven. It was, too, a judgment of 
nations rather than individuals, and especially the 



HEAVEN. 57 

Jewish nation in the close of its career. The 
inference is clear that as Christ's own nation was 
judged and punished in the earth, so all nations 
would be. It was a this-world judgment, sepa- 
ration, and punishment, and not an after-death 
affair. That which was specially in Christ's 
mind in giving this parable transpired more than 
eighteen hundred years ago. The entire Book 
of Revelation sets forth this whole matter of the 
judgment and punishment of the Jewish people 
in the early days of Christ's work. Whoever 
does not see that this is the chief burden of the 
Book of Revelation, does not see its meaning. 
Prophecy of what was shortly to transpire, at 
first, it soon became history, and is now to be 
read as such, as are the prophecies of the Mes- 
siah in the Old Testament. 

The parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus 
has often been used in support of this same 
idea of the eternal separation of men in the 
future world. But Christ seemed not to have 
had the future world in mind when he gave that 
parable, but the difference between the Jews and 
Gentiles before and after His corning. Before 
his coming the Jews were rich and powerful 
in spiritual things, counting the Gentiles as 



58 



HEAVEN. 



beggars who ate the crumbs from their table. 
Soon a great change would come, when the Gen- 
tile beggar would become rich in the Gospel 
of Christ, when the Jew would be shut away 
by the great gulf of his obstinacy. 

This idea of the separation of men and the 
eternal punishment of a part is contrary to 
the very spirit of the gospel as well as its plain 
teachings. Mankind are a family made to oc- 
cupy the Father's house of many mansions, and 
enjoy Him forever. In their diversities and dif- 
ferences they are subject to the same laws, and 
in the long reaches of life's schooling attain 
the good of union with God and peace and good- 
will with each other. 



X. — feTHE DlM-SIGHTEDNESS OF HUMAN FAITH. 

Talk with as many as we may of the realities 
of heaven, the moment we begin to consider 
them in detail, we shall find dimness and diffi- 
culty in most human faith. There is faith in 
a hereafter almost everywhere among men ; but 
it, for the most part, lacks definiteness, clear- 
ness of conception. It seems to belong to our 
spiritual nature to anticipate continued being 



HEAVEN. 59 

in some form of life after death. The soul is 
its own prophet of continued existence. The 
voices of the multitude, uttering everywhere and 
always the hope of life after death, make the 
-conviction of its truth a mighty one ; and men 
rest in it securely, and question perhaps too 
little as to its probable details. 

Paul said, " Now we see through a glass 
darkly ; " yet he was a man of grand visions, 
and contemplated in much detail the life of the 
spirit in its freedom and power in the hereafter. 
The fact that men everywhere and in all ages, 
in overwhelming, almost universal numbers, 
have believed in life after death, is a mighty 
force in favor of the thing believed. It seems 
to be mind speaking out of its nature. It is 
certain that there is in mind an unspeakable 
desire to live on. Extinction of being is a for- 
bidding thought. The hope of perpetual life is 
a bow of promise on every cloud. And yet this 
anticipation of perpetual life is not all of hope 
and faith. Reason joins to suggest not only its 
probability, but almost its certainty. Whatever 
reason there was for being at all, still exists for 
its continuance. Whatever use there ever was 
for men will always be. Whatever relation they 



60 HEAVEN. 

hold to God, — the author of their being, — 
they will always hold ; whatever they are to 
each other, they will always be ; whatever place 
they fill in the universe they will always fill, or 
it will be vacant without them. If God is their 
Father and needs them for a solace to His pater- 
nal love, He will always need them. If they 
were needed to complete the family of angelic 
life, they are still needed and will continue to be. 
That a certain glory attends human existence, 
there can be no doubt. Man is the master and 
the honor of the earth. He has added much of 
worth and dignity to it ; brought angels here to 
glorify it with their presence, and won to it 
the Son of God to found here the kingdom of 
heaven. There have been grand things enacted 
here by men, to their honor and the glory of 
God. And yet these things have been done in 
the infancy of humanity and under the weight 
of earthly evils. Seeing through a cloud darkly, 
man has caught fine glimpses of heaven and 
used them to beautify and ennoble his life. 

As we consider what man has been, is, and 
is likely to be, the reasons for his continuance 
and improvement increase all the time. If in 
the infancy of his being he has done so much 



HEAVEN. 61 

to his honor, what may he not do in his man- 
hood, under improved conditions and ample time 
for his best endeavors ? Admit that the flesh 
has terribly weighted him down, — admit that 
sin has paralyzed his powers, — admit that he 
has been his own enemy and largely defeated 
the best things he has undertaken, — it is still 
true that he has proved great capabilities in 
himself, and shown what he may, be and do in 
heaven, under conditions that will hold him at 
his best. The heaven contemplated in Christian 
faith for men is the result of what is rationally 
to be expected from what they now are, and 
from what they know of God and His dealings 
with them. Life in heaven is not a new life, 
but this one continued under better conditions. 
Heaven is the outgrowth of earth, and man in 
heaven the transformation of man in the flesh. 
This whole thing contemplated in our faith as 
to what is to be when death has done its final 
work with us, is the rational outcome of what 
we now are. If there is anything that distin- 
guishes man above everything else, it is his ra- 
tionality. If he is a creature of faith, he is still 
more a creature of reason.. Faith is not contrary 
to, but in a line with reason. In his faith he 



62 HEAVEN. 

has, in all races and ages and in all degrees of 
intelligence, contemplated a life to come as the 
logical outcome of what he now is ; and the 
faith that sees the clearest and with the best 
satisfaction is the one that is most rational. 

If this present life is the all of man, no suffi 
cient reason for his existence can be given. 
He is a bubble cast upon the ocean of being 
to be the sport of the elements. The tempo- 
rary existence of such a being is inexplicable. 
The creation of such powers to blot them out 
is childish. To kindle such hopes to extinguish 
in death is cruelty. Reason, therefore, is as 
much involved in all questions of the hereafter 
and heaven, as faith. It becomes us, therefore, 
to be patient, and think with care of the nature 
and necessities of our marvellous being, and not 
jump to conclusions that deny logic and make 
our life a game of chance. We must not ex- 
pect to see all difficulties completely removed. 
The matter is one of immense significance, and 
we must expect to apply to it our best powers 
and make it the study of life, that the way may 
open satisfactorily before us. And not perfect 
satisfaction is then to be expected. The most 
that we can expect is that of the many theories 



HEAVEN 63 

we may choose the best. And certainly as be- 
tween the two theories of life or no life here- 
after, that of life is the better ; as between the 
two theories of God or no God, that of God is 
the better; as between the two theories of the 
salvation or damnation of men in the hereafter, 
that of salvation is the better ; as between the 
two theories of the salvation of all or a part, 
that of the salvation of all is the better ; as be- 
tween Christianity in the broad view of it taken 
in this little volume, and no religion, Christian- 
ity is infinitely the better. It shows a present 
and a future for all men, a triumph for God 
and men over evil, a universe of mind glorified 
in immortal righteousness. 

We must be careful, therefore, not to adopt 
the theory of weakness, failure, or the loss of 
anything worth saving. As between a future 
of gain or loss, we are to choose that of gain ; 
for God is provident and gainful, and conducts 
His management of us and our affairs on the 
principle of profit to all concerned. As between 
a future of hope or despair, we are to choose 
that of hope ; for all good attainments come 
from hopeful pursuit. We are creatures of hope, 
and made on the principle of development, 



64 HEAVEN. 

growth, advancement from lower to higher. 
As between life as we now have it, or life be- 
yond death and above sin, there cannot be a 
moment of rational indecision ; we all see that 
life under the better conditions of the Christian 
heaven is infinitely better. Are we going to 
throw away the logic of an endless life and sit 
down in the stupidity of death ? Are we going 
to drown mind and all its excellences and 
hopes in the dismal flood of illogical scepti- 
cism ? Are we going to remand ourselves to 
dirt, — everlasting dirt ? Shall we force upon 
ourselves the opinion that we are only creatures 
of a day ? 

With these great hopes of heaven we have 
much to do ourselves. We can let difficulties 
overpower our faith, or we can arm faith with 
the logic of reason, and so rise triumphant over 
all doubt. It is not manly to become the slave 
of difficulty. The difficulties of faith are not 
greater than those of practical life. No good 
is attained without overcoming difficulty. The 
faith and hope of heaven are beset with the 
difficulties of doubt. Doubt comes in even to 
hinder the teaching of Paul from giving the 
soul full satisfaction. In relation to the human 



HEAVEN. 65 

» 

body and its occupant, he says, "It is sown a 
natural body, it is raised a spiritual body." 
" What is a spiritual body ? " Doubt at once 
asks, as though there were some insurmountable 
difficulty in the way of a spiritual body. Paul 
does not expect the material body to exist in 
that world of spirit, but such a body as is adapted 
to that form of being. He is particular to 
tell us that we are to have new bodies, and not 
the old ones ; but we ourselves shall be the 
same beings, yet in new forms. The old form 
is corruptible, the new is incorruptible ; the old 
is weak, the new is powerful ; the old is mortal, 
the new is immortal ; the old is material, the 
new is spiritual. All of which as much as says 
that sickness, decay, and death shall not touch us 
there, that the necessities of material supply 
shall not be upon us there, and hence we may 
live for other and higher aims. Life in that 
world is on a higher grade than in this. Its 
objects of pursuit are richer, its enjoyments 
spiritual, and its ambitions relate to divine and 
eternal things. 



66 HEAVEN. 



XI. — Matter and Spirit. 

We know something of matter, but not much 
in comparison with all it is. We recognize it 
by all our senses, but each sense has a different 
aspect of it. Our first thought of matter is of 
solid substance. But look a little closer and we 
shall see that matter grades up from solid to the 
most ethereal substance. Water is matter which 
in weight and force is of great power ; and water 
has much to do with our present form of life, 
four fifths of our bodies being composed of it. 
But water of its own accord readily passes into 
the form of vapor, so ethereal as not to be recog- 
nizable by any of our senses. It leaves the solid 
for the volatile form, — experiences a kind of 
resurrection, so as to exist in a risen form, 
giving us a realization of different forms of 
existence. Indeed, water has three forms of 
existence, — ice, water, and vapor. 

Above water is another form of matter, — the 
atmosphere. It is as really matter as any solid 
substance, yet not recognizable by any of our 
senses, except slightly by touch. It surrounds 
the whole earth at a depth of forty-five miles, 



HEAVEN. 67 

and is so inwoven with our physical being that 
we largely live by it. 

Both water and air are composed of still other 
material substances, still more volatile and ethe- 
real, called the gases, which seem to us to exist 
on the border-land of spirit itself, they are so 
imperceptible to our senses. Here are several 
forms in which the substance of both water and 
air exist, teaching us to believe in much that we 
cannot see or handle. 

Going above water, air, and their gases, we 
find electricity, wholly invisible and unrecogniz- 
able in its natural state, and yet the rtiost power- 
ful of all known physical substances. It abounds 
everywhere, seemingly an omnipresent agency. 
We are beginning to study and use it, but we 
know but little about it ; yet it is a wonder- 
ful and mysterious agency, seemingly so closely 
identified with our human powers as to be used 
in our thinking and living. Is electricity a mate- 
rial substance ? We cannot say. It seems mar- 
vellous and powerful enough to belong to spirit 
itself. We can hardly think of it as matter; 
and yet it must be so classified. But we almost 
involuntarily think of it as close to spirit, as an 
agency of spirit activity, as having a relation to 



68 HEAVEN. 

both matter and spirit, as a border-land element 
of spirit service and power. 

Then what shall we say of light ? Is it mat- 
ter ? If so. how like spirit ! How it darts 
through space ! How it glorifies all it touches ! 
Without weight or sound, it is yet a seeming 
substance. It is truly a marvel which seems 
partially spiritual. 

But there is a still more marvellous substance, 
or essence, which we call life, which abounds in 
all the world, of which we yet know nothing. 
Vegetable life, — who can tell anything of it ? Men 
enjoy it. are benefited by it. accept its blessings 
with gratitude, and are yet in total ignorance of 
what it is. And beyond this is animal life, still 
more wonderful, apparently moved with some- 
thing spiritual. And above this the life of men 
— marvel of all marvels. — partly physical and 
partly spiritual. The thinking, aspiring, devel- 
oping power of mind. — how necessarily spiritual 
it seems to be ! And yet there seems to be an 
essence of physical life separate from the spir- 
itual. The physical and the spiritual seem to be 
united in man during the earth life, and to be 
separated at death ; and these doubtless are 
the facts. This is the ground taken by the Bible, 



HEAVEN. 69 

and corroborated so far as it can be by the inner 
experience of mind in the flesh. 

1. All men know that their mind looks for- 
ward and upward to continued and higher life. 
Their intellects have a great craving for knowl- 
edge,, which life in the flesh only sharpens a 
little. There is immensity in the fields of 
knowledge in every direction which life in the 
flesh only suggests. If men cease to be at 
death, they are immense intellectual failures. 
They have attained but the merest smattering of 
knowledge, while infinite fields stretch before 
them. They go out of being while the merest 
children. Compared with what there is to know, 
we all feel that we are but the merest tyros. 
To live on to know more and be more is the 
great longing of the intellectual being. 

2. The same is true of the social nature of 
man. It but begins to live in the flesh. Its 
friendships are but just begun. Its loves have 
hardly blossomed yet; their richest fruitage is 
on before. Their co-operative schemes of devel- 
opment and advancement in all that is great 
and good are only initiated. The great schools, 
governments, and churches of the spiritual peo- 
ples of humanity are only in contemplation. 



70 HEAVEN. 

Brotherhood has been realized yet only in the 
slightest degree. In the spiritual sphere, above 
the temporalities that now hinder the best asso- 
ciative work of men, may be anticipated the 
accomplishment of more and better than it is 
yet in the heart of man to crave. 

3. In the moral nature of man these anticipa- 
tions of coming opportunity in a spiritual order 
of life are still more marked. There is a great 
longing for a purer virtue than we are yet able 
to practise, for a richer usefulness to our kind 
than we can yet command, for a closer and more 
satisfactory walk with God than is possible in 
the flesh. There is a great craving among the 
followers of Christ for a realization of His gospel 
among the hosts of the immortal house of many 
mansions to which He points them with such 
absolute assurance. The universal incomplete- 
ness of men in the flesh, and their almost 
universal anticipation of something more and 
better in the spirit, is a natural prophecy of a 
spiritual order of life such as revelation has set 
so richly before us. 

These reflections on matter and spirit indicate 
that from solid matter there are steps upward 
and upward through many grades of material 



HEAVEN. 71 

form, till spirit comes into being, to be over 
and superior to matter. It would seem that 
matter exists for spirit ; that the object of all 
things is to give existence, scope, power, use, and 
enjoyment to spirit. God is a spirit over all ; 
angels are spirits in His own realm of life ; men 
are to be spirits, but are now in the process of 
development, to reach by and by their maturity 
as His children. All intelligence, virtue, love, 
power, are spiritual, and belong to the Divine 
order of things. The substantial, enduring, 
ruling realities of the universe are spiritual, and 
are related in Nature to God Himself. Heaven 
is the life and rule of the spiritual, in which 
God's family live conformably to His wisdom 
and love. 

Upon this we may settle down with confidence, 
— that as not a particle of matter is ever lost, how- 
ever many changes it may pass through, so no 
mind is ever lost in any of the changes through 
which its Maker may ordain it to pass. Little 
as we may know of these changes beforehand, 
forbidding as they may appear to us, mysterious 
as they may seem in prospect, we are justified 
by all we know of ourselves, the universe about 
us, and the Power that rules over us, in believing 



72 HEAVEN. 

without a doubt in our continued being and in 
the worth and usefulness of that being increas- 
ing forever. So here in this fact we may rest, 
with the glory of eternal being before us. We 
are not wisps of vapor to vanish in death, not 
mere happenings to happen out of being by 
and by, but are permanent entities of personal 
thought and power, to live on and on in the 
universe of which we form a conspicuous and 
growing part. In the world to come, this fact, 
immensely important and grand, will be under- 
stood in its immeasurable significance, because 
humanity will there get above its childhood and 
material toys, and will live for the things of 
spirit. That is a mind, — a spirit world and not 
a body world. In this world we live mostly for 
the body, — its support, health, comfort ; but 
there we shall live for the mind, — its demands, 
uses, advancement. A mind life in a spirit 
world will be a new thing, and will of necessity 
open to new employments. 

XII. — New Employments in Heaven. 

Here our employments relate largely to ma- 
terial things, — food, raiment, shelter, finance, 



HEAVEN. 73 

travel, health, legal and temporal sociabilities. 
Even our most advanced earthly employments 
are loaded with temporalities. Our education 
and literature are of the earth, and those who 
pursue them as employments are as literally 
ensnared by the bodily and temporal necessi- 
ties that accompany living on the earth, as the 
farmer or the housewife. Religion in the body 
is largely a bodily affair. In its best estate it is 
greatly occupied with temporalities ; and those 
who find employment in its affairs — popes, car- 
dinals, bishops, priests, ministers — are not a 
little engrossed with the cares of body, house, 
and purse. It is true that the employments 
that look to the development of the soul in its 
religious life in this world are so pressed by the 
necessities that come through the body as to be 
not a little controlled by them. It is next to 
impossible to live in this world and not be largely 
employed in its affairs. Its maxims of wisdom 
relate chiefly to its temporalities. Now, when 
the body, the house, the business, the society, 
country of earth are left, and the earth itself, 
it is manifest that the employment of the soul's 
powers must very largely take new directions 
and be with new affairs. 



74 HEAVEN. 

The marked distinction between earth and 
heaven must be that in the earth we live chiefly 
in and for the body ; in heaven we shall live 
chiefly in and for the mind. Indeed, heaven in 
its essential principles and experiences must be 
mentally realized. God must.be enjoyed as He 
is realized in the mind's contemplation of Him. 
Christ may be our associate, teacher, friend in 
heaven, but our best enjoyment of Him will be 
from the enlightening, uplifting, heaven-making 
work of His truths, principles, and love in our 
minds. Men may be seen and dwelt with as 
companions, and loved as our own kind, but they 
will be most enjoyed for the light and love and 
helpfulness of their minds in their influence in 
ours. The universe may be seen and studied, 
but it will be enjoyed most for what it reveals to 
our minds of God and His interest in His intelli- 
gent and aspiring family. Life in heaven is a 
mind-life, or soul-life, or spirit-life, if any enjoy 
these terms better. The whole man is spirit. 
Therefore his employments will be such as per- 
tain to spirit-life. The present faculties of the 
mind may be expected to continue, so there may 
be a variety of employments. The pursuit of 
knowledge in its almost endless forms, the study 



HEAVEN. 75 

of men in their vast variety, the development of 
power in all its kinds, the work of instruction 
which will be endless in its variety and scope. 
and the endless helpfulness of each other will 
give ample scope for useful and intense employ- 
ment. The work of reconstructing thought, 
opinion, life, must be immense. The shaping of 
ourselves to the new conditions, the acquainting 
ourselves with the practical affairs of the new 
life, the climbing up to the outlooks of spirit 
society, must give intense employment to all our 
powers. The worlds of men, ancient and modern, 
are there, all being wrought into the new life 
and conformed to the one law and spirit and 
light and love of heaven. 

When we consider how little we can now know 
of such a life as heaven must be, we see how im 
possible it is for us even to imagine the multi- 
tudes of employments and enjoyments to which 
mind will give its ever-active capacities. "We 
must see what a learning of new employments, 
what a devising of new ways of using our pow- 
ers, what entering into new fields of life, what 
experiencing of new conceptions of what we are 
and what we may be, there will be, especially in 
the earlier years of the heavenly life. There 



76 HEAVEN. 

must be much forgetting of the old, much out- 
growing of what we were, much breaking of old 
idols and turning from old idolatries which hare 
ensnared us. While in some respects life will 
go right on as we pass from earth to heaven, 
each one of us being conscious of our personal 
identity and relations, in other respects there 
will be great changes which will introduce us to 
new and wonderful things, and open to us em- 
ployments to which we are little used. These 
changes will work transformations in us, so that 
we shall not long remain as we were in opinion, 
purpose, or character. The spirituality, new- 
ness, wonderfulness of heaven will not long be 
without their effects, in giving new light, tone, 
uplift to the mind and life. Away from its 
past, in a new world, the mind soon begins to 
come under the influences of its new environ- 
ment. Soul is soul in all worlds ; man is man, 
whatever his environments ; so we must not 
doubt that heaven will do its own work within 
him. 

Many people repudiate the thought of there 
being anything to do in heaven. To talk to 
them of employment in heaven is forbidding. 
They anticipate rest as the desirableness of 



HEAVEN. 



77 



heaven. Nothing more laborious than song- 
singing and worship do they admit to their ease- 
promoting saint's-rest. In one sense there is 
truth in this view. Doubtless heaven is a rest 
from earthly employments. How many when 
they leave this world are worn out with bodily 
toil ! Life in the flesh is a weariness to multi- 
tudes, who think of heaven as a relief from it. 
And they are right in this thought. But rest 
from earth is one thing, and idleness in heaven 
is another. We are not warranted in thinking of 
heaven as the home of idleness. Real enjoyment 
comes of activity. God is never idle, and we are 
godlike as we approach Him in loyal and loving 
activity. 

It will be good to rest from the toils that 
have worn the life out of us ; but it will be 
better to enter into activities that gladden and 
glorify our souls and carry light and joy to 
others. Not for idleness but for action, for a 
life of useful endeavor, are both earth and 
heaven. In heaven the endeavor must be of a 
spiritual nature, because that is a spiritual 
estate. 

But what multiform activities shall be open 
to our transformed powers it is impossible for 



78 HEAVEN. 

us yet to conjecture. The statement of the 
great apostle that " Eye hath not seen, nor ear 
heard, neither have entered into the heart of 
man the things which God hath prepared for 
them that love Him," is certainly an encourage- 
ment to the hope of many and great things 
within the possible attainment of our powers. 
Instead of our spiritual estate taking us away 
from material things, it may take us right into 
the heart of the material universe, and help us 
to see and use it as God does, — may multiply 
and glorify the employments that seek out and 
delight in the wonders of the creation. The 
probabilities lie in this direction, so that we 
may rest in the hope of a wide and intimate 
acquaintance with the worlds and systems of 
the universe. 

XIII. — "The Kingdom of Heaven." 

In considering the questions and conjectures 
of what we may anticipate in heaven, we have, 
in the last two sections, been much directed 
by Paul's suggestion that " we now see through 
a glass darkly." Many will tell us that all our 
visions of heaven are but attempts to penetrate 



HEAVEN. 79 

an unknown future. It is a favorite suggestion 
of not a few that we know nothing of heaven, 
that all our outlines of its life are but guesses. 
It is not uncommon for Christian people even to 
admit that heaven is altogether a matter of faith, 
— that we know nothing of it. But is not this 
admitting too much? It is not true that nothing 
is known of heaven, but on the contrary much is 
known of it. Our hope is not a vision of the ima- 
gination so much as of a reality of our knowl- 
edge. We have the gospel of Christ ; is that a 
fiction ? Are its truths and principles things of 
the imagination ? Are not the principles stated 
in the Beatitudes positive moral realities ? Are 
not the two great Commandments as essential 
realities as the facts of our own or the earth's 
existence ? Is anything in the science of mat- 
ter more real than the Golden Rule, or the 
Heavenly Father, or the souls of men, or human 
brotherhood ? Is not the religion of Christ as 
it is experienced by his genuine followers, as 
solid a fact as anything we know of matter? 
And what is that religion but an application of 
the things of heaven to the life of men in the 
earth ? 

A§ much as we know Christ we know the 



80 



HEAVEN. 



things of heaven. In His teachings and life 
He illustrated heaven to us. His speech, con- 
duct, and spirit were such as are common in 
heaven. In His loyalty to truth, duty, and love 
He acted heaven among men. In His sympa- 
thy, patience, helpfulness He gave us an insight 
into the life of heaven. In His devotion to His 
Father, sacrifice of self, love of men, and con- 
secration to righteousness, He was heaven on 
earth. When we see Christ we see heaven ; 
when we know Him we know heaven. Heaven 
is the extension and completion of His life. 
He is its spirit in actual life among men. He 
represents it, speaks for it, is its agent, and 
does its work on earth, that men may know 
its truth, its moral excellence, its uplifting 
power. He is its ambassador to all earthly 
powers and peoples, to establish its truths, 
laws, and principles among them. If they 
are intelligent and seek the information, they 
ought to have no difficulty in understanding 
Him and in getting clear conceptions of the 
country He represents. They ought not to be 
ignorant of heaven, or have any doubt of its 
essential realities. What Christ gave us of 
heaven is not to be seen through a glass darkly. 



HEAVEN. 81 

Paul had other things, and not heaven, in his 
mind when he said this. 

It may help us to a clearer conception of 
Christ's country, to give a little study to His 
presentation of it in " the kingdom of heaven," 
about which He said so much. In His thought 
" the kingdom of heaven " stood for so much 
of the truth, piety, and personal worth of the 
inhabitants of heaven, as He could get His be- 
lievers to accept and try to make real in their 
lives. In His frequent use of it, He so enriched 
this phrase with heavenliness that not a few 
have taken it to mean heaven itself. But a 
little study of it will show that He did no't mean 
by it the Divine Country, — the spirit world, — 
but the knowledge of that country which He 
gave to men, — the principles of that country 
which He established in the souls of His follow- 
ers, — so much of the substance of that country 
as He made real in the earth. He sought to 
charge His followers with the actual forces of 
heaven ; and these forces ruling in them He 
called " the kingdom of heaven." There were 
authority, law, obedience, life, — all the essential 
elements of a kingdom, — in what He gave them. 
Personally, it was made up of a King and His 

6 



82 HEAVEN. 

subjects. While its subjects were in this world, 
its principles and King were of heaven. To de- 
fine it in modern phrase, it would be accurate 
to say that the kingdom of heaven is a this- 
world institution, organized of heavenly princi- 
ples, to give men a foretaste of the heavenly 
way of living and a preparation for heaven 
itself. It is something of heaven introduced 
into men in the flesh. Some call it the Church, 
making the kingdom and the Church one. So 
far as the Church is actuated by the truth and 
spirit of Christ, it is the kingdom ; but the 
Church, unfortunately, is not always true to 
Christ. — indeed, is not often true to Christ. It 
so mingles this world in its make-up and life 
as quite to hinder the heavenly principles from 
having their legitimate sway. It is hardly true 
to say that the Church is the kingdom of 
heaven, it is so much of flesh and sense ; yet it 
ought to be, — it is its office to be, it was 
organized to be, — and much of it, or certainly 
some of it, is of the kingdom. 

The point here made and insisted on with 
great earnestness is that the . kingdom of 
heaven, as given us in the Xew Testament, is the 
bodv of men and women in the earth who so 



HEAVEN. 83 

follow Christ as to give the direction of their 
lives to the heavenly principles He taught. They 
are not yet made completely heavenly, but are 
in the process of being so made. The state- 
ments made in the first Beatitude warrant us 
in the view we are taking, — "Blessed are the 
poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of 
heaven." Here and now they are blessed in the 
kingdom ; and the blessing, is in the heavenli- 
ness of their spiritual condition, — the taste of 
heaven they are now enjoying. The u mourn- 
ers," " the meek," those who " hunger and 
thirst after righteousness," " the merciful," 
" the peacemakers," " the persecuted for right- 
eousness' sake," and the "falsely reviled" are 
said also to be now blessed in the kingdom ; and 
their blessing is a foretaste of heaven, a fore- 
knowledge of heaven. Those who obey the 
great Commandments, who practise the Golden 
Rule, who make the Gospel the rule of their 
lives, who truly believe in and follow Christ, 
have an actual foreknowledge of enough of 
heaven to make them far from strangers to 
it. The whole use of the phrase " kingdom of 
heaven," and the whole moral appeal from it, 
is <to give men in this world a practical, an ex- 



84 HEAVEN. 

perimental realization of heaven, so that they 
can anticipate it without a doubt and go forward 
to it in great hopefulness and good cheer. One 
of its aims seems to be to take away the sting 
of death, and glorify the evening of the earth 
life with the sunlight of the heavenly home. 

XIY. — The Phrase as used in the New 
Testament. 

The phrase " kingdom of heaven " is used 
some twenty-eight times in the New Testament, 
mostly by Christ Himself, always in the sense of 
a use of heavenly principles by men on earth. 
The phrase " kingdom of God," with the same 
meaning, is used about seventy times ; so that 
the two occur over a hundred times, indicating 
the constancy of Christ's endeavor to establish 
the principles of heaven in the minds of His 
followers and to exert an influence in the earth 
as a preparation for heaven. 

Then, if we take the definite teachings con- 
cerning conversion, reconciliation, redemption, 
restitution, salvation, gathering into Christ, eter- 
nal life, etc., we find they all mean the adoption 
of heavenly principles for the direction of hu- 
man lives. Study carefully the whole New Tes- 



HEAVEN. 



85 



tainent, and it will be found to be a revelation of 
heavenly things to men in the earth for their 
immediate use and benefit. It is an endeavor to 
make them acquainted with heaven through a. 
presentation of its principles. Our doubts and 
difficulties about heaven ought to vanish as we 
study the heavenly things taught by Christ. 

Professor Drumiiiond, of England, has lately 
given and published a discourse in this country, 
on " The Greatest Thing in the World." It is 
not money, office, fame, learning, or wisdom. 
It is not man, about whose greatness we say so 
much. It is the subject of Paul's thirteenth 
chapter of First Corinthians, — Love. " Though 
I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, 
and have not love, I am become as sounding 
brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have 
the gift of prophecy, and understand all mys- 
teries, and all knowledge ; and though I have all 
faith, so that I could remove mountains, and 
have not love, I am nothing. And though I be- 
stow all my goods to feed the poor, and though 
I give my body to be burned, and have not love, 
it profiteth me nothing." And so Paul goes on 
through this inimitable chapter, enforcing, ex- 
alting, crowning love as the greatest thing known 



86 HEAVEN. 

to men. And love is the great thing of Christ's 
gospel, — the heart of it. Virtue, mercy, for- 
giveness, are of love. Brotherhood, peace, union, 
civilization, progress, are of love. Salvation, 
eternal life, are of love. Private and public 
good, fellow service, saintliness, are of love. 
And whence comes this greatest thing, but from 
heaven ? It is the atmosphere, life, power of 
heaven. " God is love," and heaven is His 
home. Love is the law, the supreme agent of 
all its affairs, the ruler of heaven. Shall we 
say that we have difficulty in perceiving the re- 
ality of heaven? Who knows anything more 
real than love, anything more substantial and 
powerful than love, anything more command- 
ing and enduring ? No lover, parent, friend, 
knower of his kind, doubts the reality and 
power of love. This is the power and reality of 
heaven. We know something of what love does 
in this world. It creates families, communities, 
nations, organizations for improvement, schools, 
churches, and means of helpfulness. See the 
homes, friendships, communions of men; the 
multiform plans for human well-being ; the mis- 
sionary enterprises to carry the gospel to every 
creature ; the educational, reformatory, and chari- 



HEAVEN. 87 

table enterprises to reduce ignorance, wrong, and 
want ! These are love's work in this world. In 
heaven will they not be vastly wiser and greater? 
Where love is supreme and commands redeemed 
intellect, will, and power, will not its ways and 
works of improvement and blessedness be grander 
than human mind has yet conceived ? Will it 
leave anything undone to complete the salvation 
of every creature which Christ has undertaken, 
and make heaven the glorious home of God's re- 
deemed family which the Bible shows it to be ? 
See love as it exists in the mother, especially 
the Christian mother ! What helpfulness ! All 
mothers will be in heaven far more motherly 
than on earth. What will they not do to benefit 
and bless ? See Christ's consecrated ministers 
spending and being spent in their love of their 
kind ! All ministers will be in heaven more 
loving and dutiful than ever before ; what will 
they not do to make it all it can be for the good 
of the intelligent creation ? Surely heaven will 
be alive with good works, because love can 
never be idle, but must always work to bless 
its objects. 

It is, perhaps, too common for us to expect to 
be transported at once to the fulness of heavenly 



88 HEAVEN. 

light and enjoyment, as though it were possible 
for love to work such a miracle in our behalf. It 
is more reasonable to suppose that we' shall 
awaken to such knowledge, moral attainment, 
and affectionate experience as we have acquired 
in the earth life ; and from what we are shall go 
on to more and better, as we are aided by the 
love and wisdom that shall come to our help. It 
is largely the office of this world to prepare for 
that, as it is the office of to day to prepare for 
to-morrow, of youth to prepare for manhood, and 
manhood for old age. Each department in 
school prepares for the next. So each depart- 
ment in life prepares for the next, and wisdom 
and love work in all departments to lead on and 
up. We do not leave ourselves and change into 
vastly better and happier beings the moment we 
reach the world of spirit, but open our eyes to 
what we really are, — come to see better than 
before our faults and failures, as well as what 
we have done well and made for ourselves 
thereby. Death is an eye-opener, — or rather 
leads to a clearer-seeing life, where things are 
known as they are, and only real values have 
currency. In such a world love may do its 
blessed work, and if dominant, may open the 



HEAVEN. 



89 



way to growths and attainments which men have 
not yet conceived. In such a world love may 
administer chastisement where due, may disci- 
pline, restrain, and so lead slowly and wisely on 
in the growths of righteousness, at length, to 
the excellencies of gospel living. All the love of 
that world organized and led on by Him who 
said to the waves of Galilee, " Peace, be still ! " 
may lead earth-crippled souls up into strength 
and assured joy. How long He may be in doing 
it, we may not yet know. 

It is perhaps too common, also, to expect to 
be equal in heaven, — all alike to share the 
same attainments and blessedness. But if we 
will stop to think, we shall see at once how lit- 
tle reason we have for such expectation. We go 
as we are, with our mental as well as moral dif- 
ferences. We start life on the other side in our 
appropriate personalities. Every one is himself 
and not another. The gospel takes men as they 
are in this world, and works them up, in conform- 
ity to its truth and spirit, into the most it can 
make of them. It takes men in the spirit world 
in the same way, and works them up in the same 
way. The gospel does not change in being used 
in another world, any more than men change 



90 



HEAVEN. 



into other beings in going into the heavenly 
world. Nor does Christ change in his change of 
worlds. ^Ve had Him among men forty days 
after his death and resurrection. — in the spirit- 
life as He now lives and has lived since He left 
the flesh ; and during those forty days He applied 
his gospel to men the same as before, loved men 
and helped them the same as before. He proved 
the after-death life to be the same as the before- 
death life, in personality and essential principles. 
Hence each man is himself after death ; and 
as men differ in personality in this world, so 
they will in the next, and will not be alike or 
equal. 

We read that -God is love." and in His house 
there are "many mansions." What do these 
many mansions mean, if not many grades, condi- 
tions of attainment, capacities, and states of 
blessedness. — if not variety of personality and 
acquirement ? Surely there must be diversity in 
heaven, and all the more interest, usefulness, and 
joyfulness on account of it. But all these man- 
sions, all this diversity, variety of attainment 
and condition, is in His house. His home, 
heaven, and He rules and lives in it in His infi- 
nite love. Paul tells as that God is ultimately to 



HEAVEN. 91 

be " all in all." We cannot see how this can 
be, except that he shall at last, in His house of 
many mansions, reign in love in the souls of His 
universal family. There shall be unity of love in 
the almost infinite variety of personality of 
His children. 

XV. — Hints of the Higher Kingdom. 

There are many hints in the New Testament 
of the kingdom of heaven, as in operation in 
the spirit world, which corroborate the view that 
that world is a continuation of the essential life 
of the men of this world, and that Christ is God's 
agent in that world as in this, in the work of de- 
veloping the spiritual life of His children. Here 
is one : " We therefore labor, that whether pres- 
ent or absent we may be accepted of Him," — 
that is, that whether in the flesh or spirit, in 
this world or in the next, we may realize the 
spiritual blessedness of the gospel life. It does 
not say that the labor on the other side may be 
as effectual as on this side, but it warrants the 
inference that it is, as the acceptance is as satis- 
factory. The thought in the author's mind evi- 
dently was, that the Divine Kingdom is over the 
river as here, and labor for it and entrance into 



92 HEAVEN. 

it are as real and blessed there as here. The 
kingdom of heaven is in both worlds, and labor 
for it is needed and useful in both. Another 
hint is in Christ's statement, " He that believeth 
on me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." 
He represents Himself as " the living bread " 
which came down from heaven, — u the bread of 
God," belief in which gives enduring life, which 
endures through this world and the next. He 
says, " He that cometh to me shall never hunger ; " 
and He does not limit the coming to any world, 
any more than to any people. Come in this world, 
and the soul is welcome and blessed ; and come 
in the next world, and it is welcome and blessed. 
The soul that believes on Him, though it is dead, — 
that is, in the spirit world, — yet shall it live. 
Again He says, " All that the Father giveth me 
shall come to me ; and him that cometh to me I 
will in no wise cast out." * He does not limit this 
coming to any time or world or people. He had 
already said, " The Father loveth the Son, and 
hath given all things into His hands." The " all 
things " are all people, without any limit of race, 
time, or world. Both the gift of all and the 
coming of all to Him must have included all 

1 John vi. 37. 



HEAVEN. 



93 



whom God had made in His image, in the spirit 
life as well as in the flesh life. Still again He 
said : " This is the Father's will which hath sent 
me, that of all which He hath given me, 1 should 
lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last 
day." 1 Here, again, is the same unlimited state- 
ment. Nothing should be lost in any world. And 
here is added the further statement that all 
should be raised up, or quickened with spiritual 
life, " at the last day," or time, or world. He 
used this phrase several times in this sixth chap- 
ter of John, and every time as though He had in 
mind the last time, or existence, or world of men. 
The raising up was to be in the final life of men. 
A wonderful chapter is this, covering the whole 
life of men, the whole family of God, and the 
whole work of His Son from its beginning on to 
its final triumph in the uplifting of all souls to 
God. 

Another hint is in this : " He that is in Christ 
is a new creature." There is no limit of this 
to the earth-world. In any world " he that is 
in Christ is a new creature." Paul says : " As in 
Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be 
made alive," — that is, be made " new creatures," 
i John vi. 39. 



94 HEAVEN. 

or, as Christ says, " raised up " in the spiritual 
life. This being " made alive in Christ " is more 
than passing out of this world into the next ; 
it is by faith entering into the eternal life of 
Christ, or being " raised up at the last day." 
Christ and Paul both knew that all were not to 
be made alive in Christ in the earthly estate ; 
hence it is clear, as their language implies, that 
they had in view the life in the spirit world also. 
To be made alive in Christ is a very different 
and a much greater thing than to be raised from 
death to the immortal estate. Immortal exist- 
ence may be a blessing or a curse, according to 
the nature of that existence ; but to be made 
alive in Christ at the last day or in the last 
world is the supreme blessing of heaven itself. 

It is worthy of remark that life, natural life, 
as God gives it to His children in any world, is 
a great boon. We of this earth-world prize it 
as of inestimable value. Even in pagan lands 
it is often made great and beautiful. Grand 
and often God-approved is much of the natural 
life of men. All men covet its continuance in 
another world. And we are assured by Christ 
that it is to continue. There is to be a natural 
life of men after death, and that life is to be 



HEAVEN, 95 

immortal. And in that life men will be men 
with their soul-faculties complete and in full and 
immortal force. Pagans will, of course, come 
to consciousness there in pagan states of mind, 
and all men in the states of mind in which they 
left the flesh. And in that natural state there 
will be much worthiness of mind and life, many 
grand souls and grand actions which God and 
His redeemed children will rejoice in. But in 
that world as in this, there is the higher life 
in Christ which is open to men, and which He 
and all His are pressing upon men with the zeal, 
enthusiasm, and force of those who know its 
heavenly and eternal realness and power. And 
it is this higher life about which the New Testa- 
ment talks, to which all its revelations relate, 
in which Christ and His Apostles were engaged in 
this world, and in which they are now engaged 
among the men of the immortal world. They 
are organized in a " kingdom of heaven " which 
is full of all heavenliness and brings down to 
men always the things of God, — the true order 
of heavenly life. They, serving the King of 
kings, are pressing with eternal vigilance and 
success the work of raising up the men of that 
last world to the heavenly life in Christ. The 



96 HEAVEN. 

fulness and glory of that life is but feebly con- 
ceived yet by those who have tasted the most of 
it in our first-world experience. As feebly as 
little children comprehend the grandest man- 
hood, do the best men in Christ in this world 
comprehend the richness of the life in Christ, in 
its heavenly development and power. 

Still other hints of " the kingdom of heaven " 
in the after-death world are found in the state- 
ments that " He is Lord of the dead and the 
living," meaning those of this world and the 
next ; " that in the dispensation of the fulness 
of times [" the last day "] He might gather to- 
gether in one all things in Christ, both which 
are in heaven and which are on earth ; " that 
" wherefore God hath highly exalted Him and 
given Him a name which is above every name ; " 
that " at the name of Jesus every knee should 
bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, 
and things under the earth ; " and that " every 
tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, 
to the glory of God the Father ; " that " it 
pleased the Father that in Him should all ful- 
ness dwell ; and having made peace through 
the blood of His cross, by Him to reconcile all 
things unto Himself ; by Him, I say, whether 



HEAVEN. 97 

they be things in earth or things in heaven ; " 
that Christ after His death " went and preached 
unto the spirits in prison, . . . that they might 
be judged according to men in the flesh, but 
live according to God in the spirit." This be- 
ing gathered into Christ in heaven, bowing the 
knee and confessing with the tongue in heaven, 
being reconciled and ruled in heaven, the same 
as on the earth, is equivalent to saying that 
the work of the kingdom of heaven is being 
carried on in the over-the-river world as in 
this world, only more efficiently, because there 
it is said over and over again that Christ's work 
is to be universally successful. Times and 
times again we have the New Testament assur- 
ance of the complete success of Christ in win- 
ning all souls to Himself and establishing in 
them the principles of His gospel. It is certain 
that this was not expected to be done in this 
world. Millions go out of this world unrecon- 
ciled to Christ, unsaved, every year. There 
never was any hope of His doing the whole 
work given Him of the Father to do, in this 
world. At most He could only begin with any 
soul the great work to be done to make it a 
" new creature." His followers in this world 

7 



98 HEAVEN. 

are only beginners in the Christian life, pri- 
mary scholars in His great school of spiritual 
education. The most that is done for all 
Christians — even the best — is done in the 
other-world part of the kingdom. Christians 
in the flesh are yet weak in heavenly things, 
are much drawn aside with their lusts, much 
of this world, live much for sense and self. 
Their Great Friend has great patience with 
them and forgives them much, to keep them 
even trying to be His followers. Look at the 
facts just as we know them to exist, and we 
know the best Christians have got to be much 
made over-much, "raised up" in the after-death 
" day," to be creditable subjects of the heavenly 
kingdom. Unless there are immense works 
done on the other side for Christians who go 
from this side, they will be immense failures in 
the whiter light of that world. There is no 
other conclusion to rest in, except that that is 
the great work- world for Christ and His uplift- 
ing. If much must be done for the best that 
go from earth, how much for the average and 
feeblest Christians ! If they must be patiently 
made over and laboriously " raised up " in that 
after-death " day," what labors and patience 



HEAVEN. 99 

and love must be given to the vast body of 
worldlings and sinners that go there to need 
the wisdom and help of the blessed Christ. 
Look at things as they are, and there is no 
other conclusion, if Christ is to " lose nothing," 
as He says, only that He and all his followers 
are engaged in grander missionary works in 
that world than any saint of this world has 
ever conceived. They are using grander tal- 
ent, richer wisdom, nobler love, than are to be 
found here. See the millions that are emptied 
every year from this primary world into that 
world that holds all it gets ! There are no out- 
lets there. The work of making over is perpet- 
ual. Surely " the kingdom of heaven " which 
is organized here and there for this very work 
has a vast field for its upraising usefulness and 
for the employment of its millions of ministers, 
teachers, and helpers of Christ. Oh, the good 
work to be done ! Oh, the Christian virtue to 
be applied! Oh, the grand developments of 
character to be wrought out ! Even the babes 
in Christ of this world will be teachers of the 
gospel alphabet in that. So planned is the 
practical machinery of the great kingdom of 
redemption there, that there is something for 



100 HEAVEN. 

everybody to do who has a hand to give to the 
work ; and while he is working for others and 
the Master, he is working for himself, developing 
his power, skill, virtue, usefulness. 

So it seems that the earlier ages of the after- 
earth world must be devoted to what may be 
called the soul's intermediate life. In the earth 
is the primary life. Following this is the inter- 
mediate life, with which the upper department 
of the kingdom of heaven has to do in accom- 
plishing Christ's special work of raising men 
up into God's likeness and life. This last is 
heaven in the highest and fullest sense sug- 
gested in the Christian teachings. In the view 
of these three departments of the life of God's 
children given us, we have everything that can 
stir and lead up and on an aspiring soul. The 
mind has ample scope ; hope is quickened to its 
grandest anticipations ; love sees men in a great 
family being provided for with an infinite care 
and kindness, while their own powers and char- 
acters are self-developed and their highest good 
secured. All praise to the Father of us all 
for life under the light of the blessed gospel of 
His Son ! 



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